


galaga

by floralathena



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Good Babysitter Steve Harrington, M/M, Puppy Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 13:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/floralathena
Summary: Will Byers has a plan for this afternoon, and if it all goes well, he's going to go on his very first not-date.





	galaga

“Guys, I have a huge favor to ask you and I’ll do anything if you all say yes right now, no questions asked.”

It is not a statement to be expected from Will Byers, so the Party looks at him interestedly as he slams down his cafeteria tray.

“What is it?” Mike frowns. He looks deeply concerned, and Will suddenly regrets his urgency. They might be assuming that it’s an Upside Down type of situation.

“Take the bus home today.”

“Ew, no,” Max says and steals one of Will’s fries for him having the audacity to ask that she give up the luxury of Steve Harrington’s backseat and a planned trip to the arcade in favor of a thirty-minute ride home on a smelly bus with no explanation as to why. 

Lucas, who biked to school today anyway because he had to get home before his little sister and couldn’t afford to go to the arcade if he lost his allowance, looks at Will like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. Most of the time when people look at him like that he hates it, but this is Lucas so instead it just feels kind of nice to know that he still cares about Will’s situation even if it doesn't directly impact him.

“Please?” Will says. 

“Okay,” Mike immediately caves, “I kind of wanted to bike down and see El today anyways.”

Dustin frowns, but he nods and continues loudly slurping his lime green Jell-O like some kind of uncouth space alien.

Will turns to Max. 

“You can have my fries?” he tries. 

Max squints at him. “I always eat your fries.” She then grabs two of his fries at once, swipes them both through ketchup, and eats them in one bite. 

She has a point. 

“Then I’ll let you keep eating my fries,” Will says, pulling his tray just out of her reach. 

Max’s eyes narrow. “...Fine. But not because of the fries.”

Will expects her to follow up with why, but she just stands up on her knees in her chair to get the extra reach needed to snag his fries off of his tray. He really doesn’t mind; if he did, he wouldn’t have started giving them to her in the first place. The lack of explanation, though, does bother him. 

“Awesome! Thank you so much!” Will gives Dustin, who’s sitting to his left, a quick side-hug, and reaches directly across the table to give Mike a few enthusiastic pats on the shoulder. 

“Why do you need Steve to yourself?” Lucas asks.

“Hey, he said no questions,” Dustin speaks up, pointing accusingly at Lucas, who rolls his eyes.

“I took my bike today anyways, remember? I’m not bound by the rules of the agreement. Weren’t you all gonna go to the arcade?” 

Will looks Lucas in the eyes for a solid couple of seconds, and Lucas sighs before turning his attention back to his meatloaf. 

“It’s like you’ve got a superpower,” Max says, leaning around Dustin to talk directly to Will, “that makes stubborn stalkers back down.”

Lucas looks up from his meatloaf to scowl at her across the table, but it’s the most enamored scowl Will has ever seen and Max just smiles back at him.

“Yeah, I think it’s the Bambi eyes,” Dustin says.

“Or the time I sort of died and you all realized how much you love me,” Will adds casually, and nobody laughs, but he thinks it was kind of funny, so he chuckles at himself. 

“Yep, that’s why I’m immune,” Max says proudly as she eats another fry. The boys all exchange amused glances as they politely ignore just how quickly she caved despite knowing that she would have the fries either way. 

Will takes a deep breath and exhales with force. Steps One and Two were successful; all that remains is Step Three (the easiest), and then the moment of truth. 

He thinks about it for a few seconds and realizes that he’s gonna have to distract himself so that he won’t spiral into a mental breakdown with fear. So he pulls out his History notes and asks Mike to quiz him, and lunch passes quickly with Baron Von Steuben and hurried bites of meatloaf until the bell rings.

 

-

 

Will sprints out to the parking lot. He needs to get there first, needs a minute to explain (but not long enough to be questioned), needs- Steve! Will spots the car out front idling and rushes up to the passenger side, throwing the door open.

“Jesus, what are you running from? Did Lucas piss off Max again?” Steve pulls his sunglasses down to give Will a quizzical expression, and he looks so cool, and Will’s prepared Step Three pitch flies out the window.

“No, she’s not coming. Neither are Mike and Dustin. But this guy- um, this kid, in my science class, that I sit next to, he says he’s really good at BurgerTime and really terrible at Galaga, and I’m awful at BurgerTime but pretty good at Galaga, so I thought it would be cool if he came instead, so I kind of invited him and he said yes and I figured that since you were already gonna drive us to the arcade anyways you wouldn’t mind.” 

Steve pulls his sunglasses off entirely, gives Will an almost embarrassingly wide grin, and Will knows that he knows. 

“Totally. It’ll be nice to have a day without having to drag anybody off of Dig Dug. You should sit in the backseat with him. Weird if you leave him alone back there in a strange car.” Steve winks, and oh god was this what Lucas was complaining about back when he first introduced Max to his parents as his girlfriend?

“Hey, Will!” a voice calls, and for a second Will freezes. Wide-eyed, he stares at Steve, who violently gestures to  _ turn around, idiot _ , so he turns around.

“Hey, Jacob! Ready to go?” Will asks, and his voice definitely cracks, so the day is already ruined and he should probably just walk home alone and think about what an embarrassing human he is and listen to one of Jonathan’s angsty records as he lays on the floor moaning. 

“Yeah, I’m ready to school you,” Jacob says, and smiles, and oh god this was a terrible plan. Will never once considered what would really happen if it worked. 

“Get your asses in, I don’t have all day and gas doesn’t grow on trees,” Steve says, and Will winces just a little. 

“Jacob, this is Steve. He’s… well, it’s kind of a long story.”

“The older brother he never had,” Steve says, and Will opens the door for Jacob. Is that a weird thing to do? Max and El both hold the door for him sometimes, and Will holds the door for the other guys in the Party, so it’s probably fine. He ducks in once Jacob has scooted over, and pulls the door shut so softly that he has to then open it again and slam it shut properly. 

“I thought you did have an older brother?” Jacob asked.

“I do. Steve thinks he’s funny,” Will says. 

“Knows,” Steve corrects, and Will ignores him in favor of asking if Jacob has looked at their homework yet and whether or not he understands it so that Will can know later whether he should ask for study help or offer it. He’s not above pretending to be confused. It’s the kind of move that Max regularly derides other people for and that Dustin occasionally pulls.

The ride to the arcade isn’t half as awkward as Will feared it might be. Jacob is just like that, funny and easy to talk to, and his hair is brunette but it looks kind of red and very shiny whenever the sun is beaming directly into his side of the car, and Will knows better than to ask him so soon if he’s ever played D&D but he just knows that he would play Neutral Good, and that’s the best alignment even if Max insists anything but Chaotic is boring and Mike likes making their party more morally neutral most of the time for the sake of realism (which doesn’t even make any sense). He’s nice, good-looking, kind of nerdy, and best of all, new to Hawkins. Will would never be so naive as to assume that meant Jacob wouldn’t know anything about his disappearance, but hearing something secondhand and experiencing it for yourself are two completely different things. 

They get to the arcade. Steve gives Will a thump on the back, whispers “go get ‘em, buddy,” and makes himself scarce. As Jacob holds the door open for him and puts a guiding hand on his shoulder, like Will’s never been to the arcade before and might get lost, he doesn’t feel like a baby or a weirdo. He just feels warm, and excited, and like maybe something beautiful is on the horizon.


End file.
